This outdoor dining area is covered with a glass canopy and heated by a wood-burning fireplace to make it usable in even the most inclement weather. Teak chairs surround a table designed by homeowner Craig Rowland to mimic the look of the canopy beams above. Iron and glass lanterns evoke an old world mood.

The glass roof over this Vancouver patio lets plenty of light into the outdoor kitchen-dining area, which is outfitted with a barbecue, sink, fridge and prep counters. A door leads into the kitchen-family room area of the house. To enhance indoor-outdoor connectivity, the quartzite used on the terrace floor here is also used inside the house in the hallways and family room.

Homeowners Anne and Craig Rowland have a local urban farming organization using most of the raised planting beds in their Vancouver vegetable garden. “We couldn’t use all the space. So Inner City Farms plants it in the spring, then comes and harvests and replants and generates produce that goes to markets,” says Anne. “It’s a fairly large garden, and it produces a lot of food. Our goal was to make use of that space for the community.” The gravel for the pathways was brought in from Predator Ridge, B.C., to coordinate with the colour of the rhyolite stone on the house.

Located between a cabana (left) and outdoor dining area (right), this sitting area with well-cushioned teak chairs offers a shady spot to sit in the afternoon. The black beam is an extension of the structure that supports the glass-covered roof over the outdoor dining area. A katsura tree on the terrace is underplanted with grasses. The trees in the foreground are part of the property’s orchard. “We have Asian apple-pear trees (right foreground), apples, pears and plums, plus walnuts,” says homeowner Anne Rowland. “Some of the apples are great pie apples; others are good for eating. Our yellow plum trees are prolific! Last season, we made jam from the plums and gave it away to the guests as a favour at our son’s wedding.”

A row of carefully clipped boxwood topiaries in huge concrete planters alongside a pool give this terrace a tailored look. On the far side of the lap pool, stepping stones are nestled into thyme, and katsura trees shade the pool and the principal bedroom windows on the elevated terrace beyond. Out past the pool, drifts of lavender catch the sunlight.

Homeowners Anne and Craig Rowland clad their West Coast house in rhyolite stone veneer and a cedar-shake roof to give it an English country look. The pair designed the house themselves, and a construction crew from Craig’s development and construction company, Listraor, built it. Craig is a graduate of the architecture school at the University of British Columbia who worked as an urban planner with the city of Vancouver before he became a land developer, and Anne has worked with Craig in the development business for years, assisting with the selection of interior specifications and furnishings for residential and institutional projects.

When homeowners Anne and Craig Rowland bought this Vancouver property, much of it was covered in overgrown blackberry brambles. The new landscaping dramatically changed the look of the plot. Here, birch trees planted in this bed between the pond and pool terrace have matured quickly and solidly anchor the planting beds along this side of the pond (left). Anne and Craig put in a number of more mature trees — from five to seven years old — when they landscaped the property, including columnar maples, sequoias, birches, willows, pines and cedars. The birches here are underplanted with azaleas and daylilies. Spiky crocosmia foliage runs along the grass on the right, and a huge bed of perennial geraniums bursts with blue blooms in the distance. The huge cedars and firs in the background are on neighbouring properties and a golf course across the street.

Yellow daylilies growing along the edge of this Vancouver pond are complemented by healthy plantings of lavender around the property. Located just blocks from the ocean, the area has a marine West Coast climate. “We don’t have the extremes in temperature that Toronto, for example, would have; we’re moderated by the ocean,” explains homeowner Craig Rowland.

Homeowners Anne and Craig Rowland positioned their lap pool and main terraces on the south side of the house so that they get sunlight throughout the day. The freestanding cabana, on the right side of the terraces, houses a fitness room, sauna, showers and washroom. On the left, the principal bedroom wing opens right out to the terraces and pool. Planted alongside the lap pool, several katsura trees bring shade and greenery right into the terrace area.

Plantings around this Vancouver pond include irises, calla lilies and water lilies. The water and the growth surrounding it provide habitat for wildlife, attracting all sorts of ducks, eagles, kingfishers and more. “Beavers come up from the river, and muskrats, too,” says homeowner Anne Rowland. “And we stock the pond with fish, as well.” The pond also helps with storm-water retention — an important part of flood protection in this delta plain area — complementing the ditches that run along the roads throughout the neighbourhood. The ditches, like the pond, are home to birds and animals — and to frogs, who don’t mix well with the fish in the pond.

This Vancouver horse barn, where a teacher offers riding lessons and neighbours board their horses, is surrounded by outbuildings, much like an old barn in the English countryside would have been. One houses the tractor, another storage and sawdust shavings, and another Anne Rowland’s store, The Carrington Shoppe.